Linear for Startups: 3 Months of Business Free
Linear is where a product team keeps issues, projects & cycles. 3 months on the paid tier, free.
Business plan on 1 workspace: unlimited teams, issues & private teams
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Linear lists Business at $16 per user a month. For a team of 5 that is about $240 of Linear you do not pay for, on the tier with unlimited teams rather than the cheap one, and there is nothing to cancel at the end.
What Linear is, & when a founder starts needing it
Linear is where a product team keeps its work. Issues, projects, cycles & initiatives in one place, wired into the repo so a pull request and the issue behind it sit together instead of in 2 tools. Customer requests and support tickets arrive as issues rather than being retyped out of a Slack thread. It also runs coding agents against those issues and reviews their output in the same view.
When it starts to matter. For the first months a shared doc and a Slack channel are fine. What breaks them is rarely volume. It is that nobody can answer “what is being worked on right now, and by whom” without asking 3 people, and that a decision made in Slack on Tuesday is gone by Friday. For most teams that point arrives somewhere between the 5th and the 15th person.
Shipping a release without a status meeting. Cycles and projects give a scope and a date you can point a customer or an investor at, and they update themselves as work moves.
Turning support noise into a roadmap. Requests attach to the issue they belong to, so the third time someone asks for a feature you can see that it is the third time rather than guessing.
Answering “are we actually shipping faster”. Linear Insights reports cycle time and throughput. That is the number a board asks for and the one most seed-stage teams cannot produce.
Letting contractors in without opening everything. Private teams and guests scope what an adviser or an agency can see, which the free plan does not do at all.
What the free plan holds back, & what Business costs if you pay for it
Linear has a real free plan, so the useful question is which limit you hit first & what removing it would otherwise cost. The figures below are Linear’s own list prices, read from its pricing page in September 2026.
| The cap that bites first is teams | Free gives you 2 teams. Business gives you unlimited. The 250-issue cap gets quoted more often, but it counts active issues only & archived ones are unlimited, so a team that closes its work stays inside it for a long time. Splitting design, backend & growth into their own teams is what actually pushes people off free. |
|---|---|
| Business is not the cheap tier | Basic at $10 per user a month adds 5 teams, unlimited issues & admin roles. Business at $16 is the one with private teams & guests, Triage Intelligence, Loops, Code Intelligence, Linear Insights, Linear Asks & the Zendesk & Intercom integrations. The startup programme hands you Business, not Basic. |
| What it adds up to | $16 per user a month billed yearly, $18 billed monthly. 3 months for a team of 5 is $240 at the annual rate & $270 at the monthly one. For 10 people, $480 & $540. That is the whole value of the offer, stated plainly. |
What you get
The offer applies to Linear Business on 1 workspace & runs for 3 months from the day you redeem it.
- Unlimited teams. The free plan stops at 2, which is the limit most growing teams hit first.
- Unlimited issues & file uploads. Free caps active issues at 250 & uploads at 10MB.
- Private teams & guests. Contractors & advisers get scoped access instead of the whole workspace.
- Linear Insights. Cycle time & throughput reporting, which is what founders reach for when a board deck needs engineering numbers.
- Triage Intelligence, Loops & Code Intelligence. The routing & context features Linear keeps on Business rather than Basic.
- Linear Asks plus the Zendesk & Intercom integrations. Support requests land as issues instead of being retyped.
Deal at a glance
| Provider | Linear, issue tracking & project management for product teams |
|---|---|
| Offer | Linear Business free for 3 months |
| Applies to | 1 workspace, Business plan |
| Term | 3 months, starting the day you redeem |
| Partner affiliation | Mandatory. This is the condition InnMind satisfies |
| Team size | Fewer than 50 employees |
| Linear history | Non-paying workspaces only. A workspace that has ever paid does not qualify |
| Who redeems | A workspace admin, signed in |
| Limit | 1 offer per workspace |
| At the end | The workspace moves to Linear’s free plan. Your data stays |
| Access | A paid InnMind plan, from Fundraising Core |
| Last verified | September 2026 |
Why this one needs a partner, & how that works
InnMind is an approved partner in the Linear for Startups programme, & that affiliation is the whole offer. Linear says it plainly in its own FAQ: only companies affiliated with an official Linear partner can participate. There is no form on linear.app a founder can fill in alone. Applying cold gets you the ordinary free plan, which you already have.
That makes Linear a different shape from most of this catalogue. With Deepgram or Amplitude a partner route raises the number & going direct still gets you something. Here there is nothing to go direct to. Linear’s own answer to founders without a partner is to ask their investor or accelerator to apply.
So the claim runs through the InnMind app. Open this deal there & click Access Perk. The link behind it carries the InnMind affiliation into Linear’s redemption flow, which is why you start from the app rather than from Linear’s public startups page.
How to claim it
3 conditions decide this one & they apply together: a workspace that has never paid Linear, fewer than 50 employees, & you signed in as an admin of that workspace.
- Sign in to InnMind on a paid plan.
- Open this deal in the InnMind app & click Access Perk.
- Press Redeem on the page that opens, before you create or choose a workspace. The offer attaches at that point & follows you through signup.
- Sign in to Linear, or create the account, then pick the workspace the 3 months should apply to. You need to be an admin of it.
- Put a reminder in week 11. The 3 months run from redemption, not from first use.
Conditions worth reading before you redeem
Linear publishes these on its programme page & on the redemption page. They are here in plain sight because each one can cost you the offer if you meet it by surprise.
| The clock starts at redemption | 3 months is short next to the 6 & 12 month programmes elsewhere in this catalogue, & the countdown begins the moment you press Redeem rather than when you start using it. Redeem in the week you actually move the team over. |
|---|---|
| Never-paid workspaces only | A workspace that has ever been on a paid Linear plan, including Basic, does not qualify. Starting a fresh workspace to get around it means leaving your history behind. |
| 1 offer per workspace | You cannot apply it twice, & you cannot move it to a second workspace later. |
| An admin has to redeem it | A member account cannot. If the workspace owner is not the person reading this, send it to them. |
| Under 50 employees | Linear sets the bar at fewer than 50 & points larger teams at its sales team instead. |
| Business, not Enterprise | SAML, SCIM, invoice billing & the granular admin controls sit on Enterprise & are not part of this. For a team under 50 that is rarely the deciding factor, but it is worth knowing before a security review. |
| Plan for the drop | When the 3 months end the workspace moves to Linear’s free plan & Linear says you keep all of your data. Free is 2 teams & 250 active issues, so a team that spread into 5 teams should decide what happens next in week 11 rather than on the day. |
Who is eligible
| Partner affiliation | Required, & the condition InnMind satisfies. There is no unaffiliated route at all. |
|---|---|
| Team size | Fewer than 50 employees. |
| Linear history | The workspace must never have been on a paid Linear plan. |
| Role | You redeem as an admin of the workspace. |
| Funding | No funding condition. Linear attaches none to this programme, so a bootstrapped team qualifies. |
| InnMind plan | A paid InnMind plan, from Fundraising Core. A free account browses the catalogue & this deal opens on a paid plan. |
| If you do not qualify | Linear’s free plan carries all major features, unlimited workspace members & 250 active issues with unlimited archiving, which is enough for a small team for a long time. |
Terms worth knowing
This is the Linear for Startups programme, run by Linear, & eligibility is settled by Linear rather than by an InnMind membership. Every figure & condition here is Linear’s own as published in September 2026: Linear Business free for 3 months on 1 workspace, for companies affiliated with an official Linear partner, with fewer than 50 employees, on a workspace that has never paid. The offer is 1 per workspace, it is redeemed by a workspace admin, & the free period starts at redemption. Linear says it will remind you before the period ends, & that when it does end the workspace moves to its free plan with all data retained. Linear lists Business at $16 per user a month billed yearly & $18 billed monthly, Basic at $10 & $12, & its free plan at 250 active issues with unlimited archived issues, 2 teams, 10MB file uploads & unlimited workspace members. Linear states that only companies affiliated with an official partner can participate in the programme, & points unaffiliated founders at its free plan or at asking their investor or accelerator to apply. Deal details verified September 2026.
Questions founders ask
How do I get Linear Business free as a startup?
Open this deal from your InnMind account & click Access Perk. The link carries the InnMind partner affiliation into Linear’s redemption flow. Press Redeem before you pick a workspace, then sign in to Linear as an admin & choose the workspace the 3 months apply to.
Can I apply to the Linear startup program on my own?
No. Linear states that only companies affiliated with an official Linear partner can participate, & there is no public application form. An unaffiliated team gets Linear’s ordinary free plan.
Who qualifies for Linear for Startups?
3 conditions apply together: affiliation with an official Linear partner, fewer than 50 employees, & a Linear workspace that has never been on a paid plan. You also need to be an admin of that workspace to redeem.
How long does the Linear startup offer last?
3 months, counted from the day you redeem it rather than from when you start using it.
What happens when the 3 months end?
The workspace moves to Linear’s free plan & Linear says you keep all of your data. The free plan is capped at 2 teams & 250 active issues, so decide before the end date whether you are upgrading.
What does Linear Business cost normally?
Linear lists it at $16 per user a month billed yearly & $18 billed monthly. 3 months for a team of 5 is about $240 at the annual rate.
Is Linear’s free plan enough for a startup?
For a small team, often yes. It carries all major features, unlimited workspace members & 250 active issues with unlimited archiving. The limits that push teams off it are the 2-team cap & the 10MB file upload ceiling.
Can a bootstrapped startup get this?
Yes. Linear attaches no funding condition to the startup programme, only partner affiliation, headcount under 50 & a workspace that has never paid.
Do I need a paid InnMind plan to claim it?
Yes. Linear is one of the deals reserved for paid InnMind plans, from Fundraising Core. A free account still opens the rest of the catalogue.